Our View: D-Day at 70, say thanks while you can

Thursday

Jun 5, 2014 at 10:28 PMJun 5, 2014 at 10:29 PM

Seventy years ago, Bob Michel was a 21-year-old infantryman about to hit Utah Beach as part of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy and western Europe that would signal the beginning of the end of the Nazi reign of terror. Today we know June 6, 1944 as D-Day, a date we certainly celebrate in this nation but one for which the whole world should be thankful.

The 91-year-old Michel answers the phone at the office he still keeps in Washington, D.C. — he was Peoria’s congressman for 38 years, ultimately rising to House minority leader during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Ask him how he’s doing and he says, “Can’t complain, can’t complain.” And then he gives you nearly an hour of reminiscence about an event that so many who participated and survived remember like it was yesterday, no matter the decades that have passed.

Michel had yet to see combat when he found himself in England in 1944 with the 39th Infantry, which had done time in North Africa and Sicily. “We had enough advance briefing to expect the worst,” he said, but still would discover how ill-prepared they were, especially for hedgerow fighting. “As I look back I just have to thank my lucky stars” — a phrase he uses a lot — “that we landed on Utah Beach and not Omaha where we took all those terrible casualties,” and that “we weren’t there on that first day,” said Michel. By the time they arrived on day four of the operation — June 10 — the heavy shelling had ceased and they faced mostly small arms fire. The worst was yet to come, with a young Michel losing that combat rookie badge in a hurry.

The war would end for him in January 1945 at the Battle of the Bulge, the bloodiest of World War II for the U.S. “The guy had a machine gun zeroed in on me,” recalls Michel. “Had his gun not jammed, he was in a position to saw me in half. The good Lord was looking after me.” As it was, he did get hit in the right leg and hand, seriously enough to require rescue and to put him in a hospital for the next four months.

Like so many, he remembers not just the fear, the close calls and the harsh conditions — especially freezing in a foxhole in a German December — but the relationships formed under the most stressful of circumstances. They may have been complete strangers before war brought them to the same place, but “when you’re in a unit, you don’t have to be there long before they’re your buddy. I lost a number of them,” said Michel, pausing for a moment. “That’s a hard thing to cope with. It’s tough to even talk about now.”

He still wonders whatever happened to a foxhole companion from Connecticut at the Battle of the Bulge. “Our unit had started back on the offensive,” with “orders to dig in” and “hold the line.” A day of fighting turned into night, with ammunition running low. “The Jerrys were not on the run,” and somebody had to go get some more, a task that fell to Michel. By the time he returned, “our position had been overrun” and his pal “was not to be found,” presumed to have been taken prisoner. “He was a wonderful fellow to have by your side,” says Michel, who even now contemplates trying to contact the man’s family, if he can find them.

It’s a bond few who have never been in that situation can appreciate. It makes some awful memories tolerable. Indeed, Michel is mostly thankful — to have been placed “with some really battle-tested, smart fellas” in the 39th; to have gotten to Normandy when and where they did; to the Germans who surrendered rather than shoot; to have known the likes of one-time B-24 pilot — and later Peoria mayor — Bob Lehnhausen (profiled in a Journal Star story earlier this week) and the others whose brave bombing runs softened up the enemy before the infantry arrived; to have been assigned to the European theater rather than the Pacific, where “it seemed like we were fighting a different” and especially brutal war.

He thinks about those experiences often but not every day. He went back to Normandy for the 50th and 60th reunions, emotionally placed a wreath at one of the cemeteries, can’t help but remember every time he drives by the white markers at Arlington National Cemetery, not far from his home near the nation’s capitol. After the war, “I went back to Peoria High School, took the time to look at all those fellows I knew in ’41-’42 who had Gold Stars there ... I just couldn’t believe how many never came back ... Far too many.”

Try as one might to prod him into expressing a sense of pride in what was accomplished so far away so long ago, Michel won’t bite, suggesting that no one had a sense at the time of history being made, displaying a modesty that is in many ways typical of his generation. “I’m just appreciative of the fact you and I can be talking 70 years later,” he says before apologizing for taking too much of your time.

Of the more than 16 million Americans who served during World War II, little more than a million are left, their numbers dwindling at a rate of 555 per day. Most are in their 90s, and may not be around for an 80th anniversary. In their teens and early 20s, they pulled off one of this nation’s greatest triumphs, and arguably saved the world. Say thanks while you can.